Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2014. The reference to “last year” means 2013, and the speech discussed appears to be Ashton Kutcher’s acceptance speech at the 2013 Teen Choice Awards.
Why Ashton Kutcher? We realise some people like him as an actor more than others do, but personally I have a soft spot for the stories and advice of people who have something to tell. And my view of Kutcher as a professional actor changed for the better after seeing him play Steve Jobs, the only thing worth watching in that dud of a film.
I was also surprised when Kutcher himself explained how he prepared to play Steve Jobs, steps most of us could use to pick up the habits of the people we admire and understand them better.
Ashton Kutcher’s life was not easy
Kutcher has admitted that as a teenager he thought about suicide. His family was far from a model one, and his brother was constantly unwell because of a heart condition, so he says he tried to keep busy and came home late to avoid hearing bad news about his brother.
His parents went through a bitter divorce, and at 13 Kutcher tried to jump from a hospital balcony, something his father stopped at the last moment.
In his final year of high school, Kutcher started down a criminal path: he was caught after trying to break into his own high school at night with his cousin to steal. He was arrested and sentenced to three years’ probation and 180 hours of community service for burglary. As a result his girlfriend left him, and he was marked in his community and at school.
That experience made him see that he was on the wrong path, and he decided to change.
He enrolled in biochemical engineering with the sole aim of finding a cure for his brother’s illness, but Kutcher met his first defeat when he dropped out.
He was thrown out of his apartment for being too “wild”, too much of a party animal and too noisy. He has said he doesn’t understand how he survived all the excesses of his youth, and he admits that he thought he knew everything when in reality he didn’t have a clue.
From then on he began chasing one of his dreams: becoming a model and an actor. He made it by going to countless castings and being picked as a runway model and for several advertisements, including Calvin Klein underwear and Pizza Hut.
His motivational speech
Last year Ashton Kutcher gave a motivational speech that followed the same structure as Steve Jobs’s famous speech: three stories.
First, Kutcher talks about opportunity
Opportunity is hard work. At 13 he worked with his father fixing roofs, and later washing dishes in a restaurant. He worked in a shop and also cleaning in a factory.
Even doing these jobs, he never thought any of them was beneath him. He thought he was lucky to have a job, full stop. Every job was an opportunity to get another job.
He never quit a job until he had the next one lined up. In other words, for Kutcher, opportunity looks a lot like work.
Being sexy
Kutcher is obviously considered a sexy man, but that is not the kind of attractiveness he means. For him, there is nothing sexier than being smart. Everything else they sell you to make you feel like less is rubbish. Don’t buy it.
What he learned from Steve Jobs
After reading about and studying the greatest entrepreneur and visionary of our recent history, Kutcher has taken several lessons from Jobs.
When you grow up, you are told that the world is the way it is and that your job is to live your life without getting into trouble: get an education, get a job, have a family and a bit of money. But life can be much more once you realise one simple thing:
Everything around us was created by someone who is no smarter than you, so you can create your own things and build your own life. Don’t just live a life, build your own. Build your own opportunities.
Watch: Ashton Kutcher’s speech
Further reading
Featured image: © European Union, 2023 (photo: Jennifer Jacquemart), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
